> The idea of pricing out hospital procedures as if they're widgets or oil changes is ridiculous to begin with. That seems pretty silly. There are plenty of pr

> The idea of pricing out hospital procedures as if they're widgets or oil changes is ridiculous to begin with. That seems pretty silly. There are plenty of procedures with marginal effect on survival and/or quality-of-life, and a health-care consumer will have varying preferences for them. A rich man might be willing to spend an hour in an MRI if he's sprained his ankle; a poor man might prefer to keep his money and walk it off. Neither is wrong: they just have different preferences. For that matter, given a choice between a $15 pill of Tylenol and dealing with an ache, I'd take the ache every day of the wee.k